SEC Opens U.S. Path for Tokenized Stocks Under Five-Year Exemption

Ondo Finance announced on October 5 a new service, Ondo Private Markets, that offers investment opportunities in private companies on the blockchain. It tokenizes financial products linked to the equity value of private companies so that investors can buy and sell them, with pre-IPO AI companies as the first target. The company name has not been disclosed, and trading on the secondary market is scheduled to begin in the week of October 5, with round-the-clock trading available to investors outside the United States who meet eligibility requirements. Behind such efforts is the growth of the market for buying and selling shares of pre-IPO companies. According to Nasdaq Private Market, the transaction value handled by its transfer and settlement division rose from 372 million dollars in 2024 to 673 million dollars in 2025, and the number of companies with settlement records increased from 12 to 31. In the UK, the London Stock Exchange has been building out a private share market, and on July 22 Moneybox announced a transaction worth 45 million pounds. In Japan, HiJoJo Partners announced on January 23 an additional investment in Nasdaq Private Market, and on August 25 completed registration for its private securities brokerage business.

The SEC granted temporary, conditional exemptive relief on September 17 allowing approved venues to trade tokenized exchange-listed stocks onchain, sending Robinhood Markets Inc. shares up just over 9% on September 18 after a 5% gain the previous session. The relief exempts qualifying venues from the Exchange Act's definitions of "exchange" and, for certain liquidity providers, "dealer," but it requires full shareholder rights including voting and dividends, meaning Robinhood's existing stock tokens, which are synthetic products offering economic exposure rather than actual ownership, do not qualify. The order also lets listed companies object to third-party tokenization within 30 days, a provision directly at odds with the public stance of CEO Vlad Tenev, and the relief remains temporary and subject to public comments, with Coinbase and the NYSE's planned 24/7 digital venue potentially entering the compliant space first. Robinhood traded roughly 31.7 million shares, about 1.37 times its one-month average, though the stock sits about 28% below its 52-week high, with a forward P/E of 45.46x against a sector median of 10.88x. Hedge fund holders rose from 84 at the end of the first quarter of 2026 to 87 at the end of the second quarter of 2026, and short interest stood at 4.54% of float as of August 31, 2026.

Coinbase has completed its integration of Deribit, the world's largest crypto options exchange, which it acquired for about $2.9 billion, creating Coinbase Global Exchange, the first and only crypto exchange with a unified global liquidity pool. Liz Martin, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, announced the completion of the integration at Token2049 in Singapore, saying the new exchange brings US and international customers into one place and combines the company's US retail base with its international base alongside an upgrade of its professional trading tools, Coinbase Advanced. Martin said Coinbase is launching spot margin and options for pro traders in a unified portfolio offering maximum buying power and lower fees, and that the company has "super ambitious" volume growth plans. She said Coinbase is diversifying revenue through an "everything exchange" that now includes equities, equity options, perpetual futures, pre-IPOs, commodities and prediction markets, and that the company announced last week a clearing platform for prediction markets in the US along with intentions to launch its own prediction markets. On tokenization, Martin said Coinbase recently launched tokenized equities for customers outside the US, giving holders the same shareholder rights as actual stock ownership, and cited a survey finding that about 60% of its institutional clients are excited about tokenization and investing in tokenized assets. She said Coinbase sees the APAC region as a major growth area, having opened a new headquarters in Singapore about two months ago and acquired licenses in Australia and India.

The Solana Foundation announced Solana DvP, a settlement platform for financial institutions, in New York on October 6. It aims to execute asset delivery and payment simultaneously on the Solana blockchain, completing securities trade settlement in seconds. J.P. Morgan advised on the practices and requirements of securities settlement at financial institutions. The Solana Foundation is offering it as an open-source settlement platform that companies can use in common. DvP stands for Delivery versus Payment, a settlement method that links the delivery of securities with payment of the purchase price. According to the Solana Foundation, institutional investor transactions on conventional blockchains have often relied on individually built smart contracts, but Solana DvP aims to standardize this settlement processing and will be released under the MIT license, allowing use and modification. The platform supports Solana's major token standards and also offers functions such as issuer control over transfers and the ability to pause them. It envisions banks, asset custody companies, exchanges and others acting as settlement agents. However, it is limited to transactions in which both the assets and the payment instrument are tokens on Solana. Technical documentation from the Solana Foundation explains that while simultaneous settlement removes principal risk between parties, the credit risk and redemption risk of token issuers remain. Efforts to link the delivery of digital securities with payment are also advancing in Japan. Nine companies including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced on October 6 that they had completed the second phase of a proof-of-concept experiment for simultaneous settlement of digital securities using stablecoins. The Solana Foundation says Solana DvP has undergone an external security audit and is ready for use with real funds. Meanwhile, it is recruiting partner companies and initial participants ahead of the full release.